THE UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
Minutes of the meeting of the Steering Committee held on 8 July 2013
Present:
Vice-Chancellor,
Deputy-Vice-Chancellor,
Professor S Croft,
Professor Christina Hughes,
Professor Christopher Hughes,
Professor T Jones,
Professor J Labbe,
Professor J Palmowski,
Professor S Swain,
Professor M Taylor,
Professor P Thomas,
Professor P Winstanley,
Professor L Young.
Apologies:
Registrar and Chief Operating Officer, Professor A Caesar, Mr N Swain.
In Attendance:
Deputy Registrar, Academic Registrar, Director of Development and External Affairs,
Director of Human Resources, Administrative Officer (Governance), Director of
Campus Services and IT (for item 398/12-13), Director of IT Security (for item
398/12-13), Assistant Registrar (Risk, Continuity and IT Security) (for item 398/1213) .
392/12-13
Minutes
RESOLVED:
That the minutes of the meeting held on 24 June 2013 be approved.
393/12-13
Comprehensive Spending Review
REPORTED: (by the Vice-Chancellor)
(a)
That the Comprehensive Spending Review announced on 26 June 2013 outlined a
6% cut for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
(b)
That documents released by the Treasury following the statement also revealed that
£100 million in savings would be found by cutting the budget for the National
Scholarship Programme from £150 million in 2014-15 to £50 million in 2015-16, when
it would be transformed into a postgraduate scheme.
(c)
That the £50 million fund would be administered by HEFCE, which would allocate the
money competitively to higher education institutions, and would attract additional
scholarship funding from the private sector or from the institutions’ own resources.
(d)
That the science resource ring-fence would be maintained at £4.6 billion in 2015-16.
(e)
That a large investment in research capital spending was also announced, which was
cautiously welcomed by RCUK, noting that the 2015/16 settlement would still present
continued challenges to the research community which has already experienced
reductions to research investment.
(f)
That further to recent suggestions that spending on medical research and training
would be moved from BIS to the Department of Health, to which Warwick Medical
School had joined other universities in formally expressing concern, it was announced
that such spending would remain in BIS.
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394/12-13
Outstanding Student Contribution Awards
REPORTED: (by the Vice-Chancellor)
(a)
That five students had been awarded Outstanding Student Contribution Awards
(OSCAs) in 2012/13.
(b)
That the students were being honoured for making significant contributions to the
University community or internationalisation agenda during their time at Warwick and
would receive their awards at degree ceremonies in July 2013.
(c)
That the winners included: Muhammad Ali Chaudhry for his work as leader and
founder of educational charity Renaissance Pakistan; Siraj Datoo for his role as CoFounder and Editor in Chief of The Student Journals and as a freelance journalist,
specialising in articles on human rights; Aimee Hardaker for her creation of “Warwick
Mind Aware”; Jure Jeric for his role as Editor of the journal Reinvention - an
international journal of undergraduate research; and Sophie Potter for her role as
Student Calling Team Manager.
RESOLVED:
That the congratulations of the Committee be extended to the five OSCA winners.
395/12-13
British Association of Cleaning in Higher Education
REPORTED: (by the Vice-Chancellor)
(a)
That the Estates Office Cleaning Team had been declared the winner of the 2013 Best
Practice Award by the British Association of Cleaning in Higher Education (BACHE).
(b)
That the award recognised the comprehensive induction process that each new
member of staff receives, which ensures that Warwick’s Cleaning staff have the
knowledge and skills to provide a high standard of cleaning and customer care.
(c)
That David Verdon, a member of the Cleaning Team, was Highly Commended in the
Cleaning Operative of the Year category of the awards.
RESOLVED:
That colleagues in the Estates Office Cleaning Team be congratulated for these
achievements.
396/12-13
UK Corporate Games 2013
REPORTED: (by the Vice-Chancellor)
(a)
That the UK Corporate Games, Europe’s largest annual multi-sport festival for
businesses and organisations, took place on from 4-7 July 2013, with a wide range of
the sports taking place on campus.
(b)
That between 4,000 and 5,000 competitors visited Warwick with over 1,500 of them
staying on campus.
(c)
That approximately 140 Warwick employees competed for the University in sports
including netball, badminton, cricket and running.
(d)
That Warwick came 8 overall, out of 56 teams.
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RESOLVED:
That the congratulations of the Committee be extended to all staff who took part in the event
and contributed towards the University’s impressive overall result.
397/12-13
Summer Degree Congregations 2013
REPORTED: (by the Vice-Chancellor)
398/12-13
(a)
That preparations were underway for the Summer Degree congregations, taking place
from 15 to 20 July 2013.
(b)
That honorary degrees would be awarded to: computer scientist Professor Leslie
Valiant; historian Professor Jan de Vries; the former Artistic Director at the Royal
Court Theatre, Dominic Cooke; the President of the Royal Society, Sir Paul Nurse;
philanthropist Michael Mackenzie; actors Ruth Jones and Adrian Lester, Professor
Anne-Marie Slaughter from Princeton University; mathematician Professor Robert
Calderbank; and RSC artistic director Greg Doran.
Cyber Security
CONDIDERED:
A briefing paper and oral presentation on University cyber security issues (SC.236/12-13).
REPORTED: (by the Director of Campus Services and IT)
(a)
That in common with all large public and private organisations, the University was a
potential target for persistent and determined cyber-attacks on its computer systems.
(b)
That the impact of such attacks could include disruption to University business, the
compromising of critical research and associated confidential information, and the
exposure of commercially valuable information held by partner organisations.
(c)
That there was a need to consider the future increasing tension between the
University’s ability to react to attacks and the maintenance of the ethos of openess
and collaboration, and that the IT Services team would be shortly bringing forward
further proposals which will be necessary to continue to protect the security of the
University’s systems and intellectual assets.
(d)
That the University was liaising with the Centre for the Protection of National
Infrastructure (CPNI) in its consideration of how it might further develop its resilience
and response capability to such attacks.
(e)
That the Institutional Governance Team was developing an information security
framework to provide direction to colleagues in information security best practice, in
order to develop a positive risk and compliance culture aligned with the emerging new
risk management strategy, and to provide enhanced support for colleagues within a
more consistent and structured framework.
(by the Vice-Chancellor)
(f)
That cyber-security was the responsibility of the whole University community, with
active leadership from senior management.
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RESOLVED:
That the Director of Campus Services and IT be asked to bring forward recommendations on
the requirements for any necessary safeguards with respect to the security of the
University’s systems and intellectual assets.
399/12-13
Report of the Review of the Warwick Graduate School
CONSIDERED:
The report of the review of the Warwick Graduate School, and the recommendations of the
Review Group for future development (SC.237/12-13).
REPORTED: (by the Deputy Registrar)
(a)
That the report from the Review of the Warwick Graduate School made a number of
recommendations to be taken forward as part of the University’s wider strategy
discussions.
(by the Chair of the Graduate School)
(b)
That the recommendation that the role of the Chair of the Graduate School be
enhanced to allow the postholder to act strategically, was key for the development of
the Graduate School.
(by the Academic Registrar)
(c)
That he was keen to progress the provision of skills training and to explore the
possibility of relocating the Graduate School to Senate House, as soon as possible.
(by the Dean of the Warwick Business School)
(d)
That it should be noted that departments were distinctive and as such, a centralised
approach to skills training may not be suitable for all.
(by the Vice-Chancellor)
(e)
That the Review Report proposed that skills training initiatives would be run within
the departments, but the increased dialogue on skills training initiated by the
Graduate School would ensure consistency in quality standards.
(by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education (Innovation, Employability and Widening
Participation))
(f)
That the University’s ambition to significantly increase postgraduate education by
2015 provided an overarching narrative to the work of all departments, and that the
Graduate School could be instrumental in synergizing this strategic focus.
RESOLVED:
That the comments of the Steering Committee be taken into account when the
recommendations of the Review were progressed.
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400/12-13
Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team – Update on Procurement
RECEIVED:
A paper updating the Committee on the progress of the University’s bid to become the
Cabinet Office’s partner in a joint venture to grow and develop the Behavioural Insight Team
(SC.241/12-13).
REPORTED: (by the Vice-Chancellor)
That on 1 July 2013, the Government Procurement Service had announced that the
University had been invited to proceed to the negotiation stage of procurement, following its
submission of the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire in June 2013.
JH/CH/Steering/Minutes/2012-2013/08-07-2013
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